LO SCREENING AUDIOLOGICO A SPECIAL OLYMPICS

Special Olympics is an international program of sport training and athletic competitions involving more than a million of people with intellectual disabilities. Special Olympics developed the healthy athletes program because Special Olympics athletes cannot participate fully in their sport unless they are in good health. The healthy hearing is one of the Special Olympics discipline and has the aim to study the prevalence of hypoacusia in athletes as well as guide the audiologists, physicians, health care providers , educators and the family on the auditory problems and their solutions in individual with mental disabilities. the speed of screening allows to test a high number of athletes. During italian competitions from 2007 to 2009 were tested 516 participants, 407 athletes ranged 8 to 63 years old: 6 of them didn’t complete the screening. The screening sequence comprises external ear canal inspection, evoked otoacoustic emissions (EOAE), tympanometry, pure tone hearing screening, pure tone hearing threshold testing. The program’s team was composed by a clinical director, an organizer, 6 medical doctors, 8 audiologists, 9 students, 2 volunteers and a team of clowns. The examination protocol starts with otoscopy and EOAE screening. Only the athletes who pass bilaterally conclude the screening, all the others continue to tympanometry than to pure tone hearing screening that consists on testing hearing at 2000, 4000 Hz at 25 db HL. The athlete is referred for further audiological evaluation if the results show a no pass at any frequency in either ear and moves to the evaluation of hearing acuity for air conduction pure tones at 1000, 2000, 4000 and 8000 Hz and bone conduction when possible. Of 71 athletes who was referred at pure tone threshold testing only 13 had a known hearing loss already treated in territorial health centres. The other 58 athletes passed to pure tone threshold testing. The mean hearing loss (PTA) for 1000 and 2000 Hz found passed to the 41.84 db hl and 41.71 for the right ear and of 38.68 db hl e 41.71 db hl for the left ear. The data reveals that the Special Olympics athletes who represent a selected sample of people affected by light to mild mental disability, according to international literature, present a high incidence of hearing loss and cerumen often unknown. Hearing loss limits communication and, in mentally disabled subjects, further reduces comunicative development and possiblity of social inclusion. For that reasons, is desirable to monitor regularly the state of health and apply ear treatment or hearing aid when indicated.